Tottenham: Dejan Kulusevski to miss start of new season as Thomas Frank unsure on injury return date | OneFootball

The midfielder underwent knee surgery in May

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Spurs face Reading and Luton away from home to start their list of friendly fixtures, before travelling to Hong Kong and South Korea to continue the preparations for the new campaign.

Kulusevski has been ruled out of those matches and is not close to a return, with Frank confirming that the 25-year-old will not be available for the start of the Premier League season on August 16 against Burnley.

“I don’t like to put a timeline on it," Frank said.

"Put it this way, he’s not ready for the first game of the season.”

Dejan Kulusevski was injured against Crystal Palace last season

Getty Images

Injuries were a serious problem for Tottenham last term, with a host of key first-team players missing significant chunks of the season.

Some of those issues remain, with Kulusevski and Radu Dragusin on the sidelines and James Maddison only just returning to part-training after a knee injury of his own.

Spurs have overhauled their medical department this summer. Adam Brett and Nick Davies, previously director of performance services and head of sports science, respectively, have both departed.

Nick Stubbings has followed Frank from Brentford to become medical lead and Tom Perryman has arrived as a strength and conditioning coach.

Asked if he felt Spurs were doing something wrong last season to be hit by so many injuries, Frank responded: "It’s always difficult for me to look into what happened before me.

"Of course, we try to look into it and speak to people who were there last year and try to learn from it. For me, if there were mistakes that’s another thing - I will definitely make some mistakes. I think we need to learn from that. We need to learn from last season.

"I have some ideas of what I think we can improve and do better. It should be possible to improve it."

He added: "Hopefully we can make good decisions, there will be that little bit of feeling sometimes with knowledge and numbers about when to rotate and when to rest. I think it's a big thing as well.

"But we know availability is crucial to us having success."